Saving Your Sight

Now there’s a major breakthrough in eye surgery for patients who suffer from extreme near-sightedness, farsightedness or astigmatism. The procedure offers 20-20 vision in a matter of minutes.

Lisa’s eyesight was so bad that even when she wore glasses or contacts, she suffered from eye stress.

Lisa, Surgery Patient:
“I’d have severe headaches every evening.”

Lisa’s near-sightedness was too severe to correct with surgery. So her doctor　told her about a new procedure call Lasik. It corrects near-sightedness, astigmatism, and far-sightedness.

Lisa:
“I decided it was worth it to go anywhere in the world that I needed to go in order to have my vision corrected.”

Lasik combines lasers with a technique known as ALK to maximize accuracy and safety. Doctors cut a contact lens-like flap across the top of the cornea allowing the laser access into the underlying cornea.

Ophthalmologist:
“What the laser does is reshapes the cornea. Think of it as a high tech form of sand papering the cornea into the shape that you want it.”

Standard laser surgery cuts through the surface of the cornea setting off the alarm system of the eye. Since Lasik goes underneath the alarm, the eye heals itself rapidly with minimal discomfort when the flap is reset. Lasik is also the first eye surgery for bi-focal correction.

Basically with the laser we’re able to etch a bifocal into the cornea.

Corena needed bi-focals for reading. Now she can read with 20-20 vision.

Corena, LASIK Surgery Patient:
“It was really a dream the first couple of weeks or something you would just look around at everything and say, ‘Ohhhh, I can really read this’.”

Lasik reduces the risk of corneal scarring and the patient’s vision is restored rapidly, very often the day of surgery.